Tony Iommi Explains How Black Sabbath’s Songwriting Changed After Ozzy Osbourne Left

Black Sabbath lead guitarist Tony Iommi opened up about the songwriting process of the band after frontman Ozzy Osbourne was fired from the band due to his excessive substance abuse back in 1979 and replaced by Rainbow singer Ronnie James Dio during an interview with The Rhino Podcast, and revealed that the whole band worked together while creating a song.

As you might know, frontman Ozzy Osbourne was fire from Black Sabbath in 1979 by guitarist Tony Iommi due to the fact that his abusing both alcohol and drugs were on a totally different level than the other band members as his addiction affected his interest in music and Osbour often refused to sing while the band was working on a new album.

Therefore, Tony Iommi took responsibility and made the hard decision to fire Ozzy Ozbourne since he believed that the only reasonable choice was to let him go otherwise the band was faced with total disbandment because of the pressure of creating new music with a singer who refuses to sing.

After Osbourne’s departure, Black Sabbath started to work with Rainbow singer Ronnie James Dio as their lead vocalist, and the band’s whole sound changed drastically as a different voice came in and a different musical approach emerged among the band.

During a recent interview, Tony Iommi opened up about the process of songwriting of the band after their frontman changed from Ozzy Osbourne to Ronnie James Dio and revealed that there is already one Osbourne, therefore, their goal was to create a new sound. Iommi also revealed that they achieved their goal with Ronnie thanks to the fact that every band member worked together.

Here is what Iommi said:

“If we would have got somebody that sounded similar to Ozzy, I mean, there’s only one Ozzy, that was it. So try and find somebody that sounded too similar, I don’t know if that would’ve worked.

I think we went the opposite way, which was Ronnie – just a totally different singer. It worked really well, and it worked with the writing because it made us write differently as well.

I was able to come up with different ideas for Ronnie, and we could swap ideas. I played some to Ronnie, and he’d go, ‘Yeah, I really liked that’.

And then he’d start singing something, and then we’d say, ‘We need another part.’ I played a few bits, and that’s how we’d work it really, we worked together, so it was a good combination.”

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